Indah Water Konsortium (IWK) now runs advertisements in Malaysian
newspapers saying that without it, our daily water supply could
be contaminated without it. But IWK itself is a great polluter,
as residents in Damansara Utama can tell you. The common septic
tank threatened to overflow, IWK informed, and reminded often
over a year. It did nothing until it could no longer. Its
workers came, punched a hole on the side of the septic tank to
allow its contents to overflow into the drains and into Sungei
Kayu Ara, a tributary of Sungei Penchala.

Sungei Penchala is, by common official consent, the most
polluted river in Selangor. So, in keeping with its commitment
to clear water, IWK now pollutes already polluted rivers! When
residents pointed this out, IWK said, it could under the law.
That this would make the river even more polluted did not bother
IWK. IWK told the residents that it does not have the funds to
keep septic tanks as clean as it should. But its commitment to
clean water is unquestionable, as its right to pollute under the
law. Well and good. It does appear that its stock-in-trade had
gone into the brains of its senior officials.

It will not address its "customers'" complaints, nor deal
with them directly. Would IWK tell us under what law have it
acquired all these "customers" without a contract with them? It
sends debt collectors to threaten their "customers". I have
asked for their legal status and IWK has refused to reply. It
meets its "customers" in high profile public meetings where it
tells them of its concern for clear water.

Sewage, once a municipal responsibility, was privatised to
IWK in 1990, before the general elections, in the rush to
privatise government utilities to cronies of the Establishment.
That internationally business man of unquestioned repute, Tan Sri
Dato' Seri Vincent Tan, ran with it awhile, threatening people
with perdition if they did not allow IWK to extort it. If a
business man had tried to collect from me as this internationally
known business of unquestioned repute wanted, he would have been
sent to jail quick enough extortion. He sold out, and IWK
changed hands several times, until it returned into the Ministry
of Finance Incorporated. Like every privatisation, it has
failed, and miserably, but it allowed the cronies, courtiers of
the Establishment to make money.

Since 1990, IWK has not come up with a plan how to bill its
"customers". It tried several methods which clearly could not
work. It still does not work. It does not send bills, and now
send debt collectors to threaten its "customers" to pay out what
it did not ask for. IWK would not, indeed cannot, produce the
contracts its customers signed for its service. Every other
utility and service -- electricity, telephone, water -- IWK
"customers" get because it signed for them; they are now told
that they have to pay for IWK alleged services without a
contract.

That is not on. It should either come clean with under what
authority of the law it demands that it be paid, show clear
evidence it has contracts with its "customers", and treat its
"customers" with respect and tell them precisely why they have to
pay, in simple terms, giving them details of its right to
collect. Then they would pay. Sending thuggish debt collectors
is not the answer. Nor pumping sewage into already polluted
rivers.